Rebanded NPSPAC licensees top century mark

More than 100 public safety licensees have finished the 800 MHz rebanding process and almost half of the non-border National Public Safety Planning Advisory Committee licensees have finalized deals with Sprint Nextel, a Transition Administrator (TA) official said.

While almost all of the Channel 1-120 licensees have been reconfigured, 422 (47%) of the 908 NPSPAC licensees have final reconfiguration agreements with Sprint Nextel, TA Director Brett Haan said. More important, this figure includes 101 (11%) NPSPAC licensees that have finished the process entirely, he said.

“The most important take-away from this is that a lot of work has been done,” he said.

Meanwhile, long-awaited work in border areas may be able to begin in earnest in the near future, said David Furth, associate bureau chief for the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau. An agreement in principle has been reached with Canada, and “intensive discussions” with Mexico have been “very positive,” Furth said.

“Those negotiations are at a critical point right now, and we should know very shortly whether we're going to reach a final agreement,” he said. “As always, I remain optimistic.”